Some ovarian cancer really don’t have any symptoms other than abdominal swelling. Mostly ovarian cancer cases are being diagnosed by simply asking the patients medical history, conducting some physical examination, and other various tests just to aid it. Testing for ovarian cancer is the most effective way just to detect if a person has it or not. There is a screening being done to easily detect if a person posses this disease, but unfortunately these are not sufficiently accurate for general screening.
One of the testing for ovarian cancer being done is the gathering of the patients’ medical history. In which the physician will ask the patient if she is using any oral contraceptives, because women using birth control pills are less likely in developing ovarian cancer.
The patient will also be asked about her pregnancy and breast-feeding history, because like taking oral contraceptives, giving birth and breast-feeding your child will lessen your risk of having ovarian cancer. Some of the other questions would be about the family history of ovarian cancer, previous gynecologic surgery, and previous cancer history.
The family history would simply help the doctor detect if the patient is at the high risk of having an ovarian cancer, if the patient’s immediate female family members have this disease then, the patient is at high risk having it too. How about the previous gynecologic surgery? If the patient has undergone with tubal ligation (having her fallopian tube “tied” to prevent pregnancy) or even hysterectomy (this is the removal of womb without removing the ovaries) she is less likely to develop ovarian cancer.
And lastly, the previous cancer history will certainly let the physician know if the patient could have ovarian cancer; this is most especially being applied for those who had been cured with their cancer, especially for those who had breast cancer. The physician may also ask the patient about her smoking habits or if she is always being exposed to harmful occupational or environmental substances that may cause them to be at risk.
Another way in Testing for ovarian cancer is the pelvic examination. This includes palpation or feeling for some unusual growth, masses, or even nodules which are the small masses of tissues. They also conduct two-hand palpation to be able to feel if there are enlarged ovaries in the patient. This is the procedure wherein the physician wears a pair of gloves and inserts her fingers into the patients’ vagina to palpate the skin over the ovaries with the other hand.
The palpation helps the physician to detect masses on either or both sides of the uterus. If there’s a mass present that is larger than 2 inches in diameter, solid not cystic (sac-like), or bilateral (which means present in both sides), then ovarian cancer is present in that patient.
Another thing is that, nodules are often being caused by ovarian tumor metastases to the membrane lining the pelvic cavity or also known as peritoneum. If the tumor has been spreading to the omentum or the fatty tissue that covers the bowels, the parts of its bulk may also be felt in the upper abdomen of the patient.
Those are just some of the Testing for ovarian cancer being made or conducted by most of the physicians around the world. These are the ways on how they can detect if a patient already possesses this disease or not.
